Landscaping a stretch of public art

A field of cabbages have been transformed into a piece of roadside landscaped public art.

The land between the M1 and the new Brooklands estate was made into art after Milton Keynes Council stipulated that all development at Brooklands should be set back up to 350m from the motorway, to avoid issues of noise and air pollution.

Planners at David Lock Associates came up with the original concept for the site for their clients Places for People, rather than lose a huge swath of potential housing land.

The landscaped and ecologically diverse ridge is 3.5km long, 70m wide and 11m high, with an integrated planting that forms a piece of public art which provides a seasonal gateway to MK

Robert Purton, partner at David Lock Associates, said: “12 years of planning and seven years of construction has turned a series of problems into an asset for the new and existing communities of the area.”